Uncertainty over BBC news outlets

The director of BBC News, Helen Boaden, has fuelled fears that Radio Five Live, BBC1's Breakfast News and Radio 4 news programmes, including The World at One, will effectively be downgraded as part of the shake-up ordered by Mark Thompson last month.

She has singled out her her six top priorities for funding and resources, which include The Today Programme, the Six and Ten O'Clock News bulletins on BBC1, and BBC2's Newsnight.

Ms Boaden's other priorities - in terms of programmes and services that are most significant for the BBC News brand and whose quality must be ring-fenced - are rolling news channel News 24 and the BBC News website.

"We want to start with programmes that carry the brand most forcefully with the audience," Ms Boaden said of her decision to prioritise certain programmes and bulletins.

But her list of priorities excludes Radio Five Live, BBC1's Breakfast and One O'Clock News bulletins, and Radio 4 news shows such as The World At One and PM, raising fears that these areas could bear the brunt of the 15% cuts the news division must find to meet the director general's cost savings targets.

However, Ms Boaden said there was "no way" Radio Five Live and the BBC1 bulletins would be singled out for cuts. "But they may be asked to do things differently," she told BBC in-house magazine Ariel.

She said these changes would include cutting down on "stupid duplication", highlighting the practice of different news programmes and services asking guests to do multiple interviews when big stories broke as one area that would be looked at.

"I know the reason for duplication is an emphasis on distinctiveness, but you can take it too far. There has to be more potential for collaboration over guests," she added.

Her comments will be taken as a coded warning to BBC staff to stop duplicating interviews.

It is common practice for government ministers to do interviews on The Today Programme and then go straight onto Nicky Campbell and Shelagh Fogarty's breakfast show on Radio Five for a second grilling.

This is one area where changes could be instigated with Today and Newsnight given priority over Five Live and Radio 4's The World Tonight.

She used the example of the death of John Peel. She was interviewed three times by three different camera crews.

Ms Boaden said she would resist the widely touted money-saving option of merging the News 24 and BBC1 lunchtime bulletins, saying: "It's not looking like it's on the cards."

But Mr Thompson, also quoted in Ariel, said he was not ruling anything out when it came to cost-cutting in BBC News.

"Two bulletins at 1pm or an extra £1m to put into investigations on BBC1? We need to weigh the trade offs," he added.

Ms Boaden said she wanted to plough some of the savings made in the news division into more current affairs investigations for BBC1.

She described flagship BBC1 current affairs show Panorama as "totemic", but added that she wanted to see other current affairs specials on the channel at 9pm.

Mr Thompson said the scheduling of all the BBC's current affairs output was still under review, including the possibility of moving Panorama back to 9pm, from its current Sunday night 10.15pm slot. "We don't want to move it to an unsustainable slot," he added.

Ms Boaden said that she could not guarantee there would be no compulsory redundancies as part of the cuts. "It would be dishonest to pretend," she added.